Scope note: I am including the WIPs I’ve posted to AO3 this year, and will also include them in future Years in Review for years in which new chapters are posted. Stories posted for Yuletide 2018 are included in this post.

In 2018 I posted 13 complete stories and added chapters to two ongoing WIPs, for a total of over 284,000 words of fic posted in four fandoms. That is the fewest different stories I've posted in a complete year of fic-writing, ever, but, uh, one of them was the lion's share of TINSOB, so.

I actually wrote just over 211,000 words of fic in 2018 (most of TINSOB was written before this year, but otoh I wrote the remaining TINSOB chapters and most of Slavefic #6 and haven't posted them yet, so.) My worst month was March, when I wrote less than 3,000 words of fic in the entire month (and then I got on some new brain meds) and my best month was October, when I wrote over 30,000 (helloooo Venom fandom!)

My best story this year: I mean, it's not technically quite done yet, but, uh, this is probably a slam dunk for There Is No Shortage of Blood.

My favorite story this year: oh man, this is hard. "Aide-Memoire" or "The One the Battles Always Choose" probably? Or "The Way We Are Tied In" because I like to suffer?

My most popular story this year:There Is No Shortage of Blood is of course running away with hits and comments, even when I isolate the hits and comments received in 2018. Two of my Venom stories actually got more kudos (since October!) than TINSOB received in all of 2018: "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" (2,200) and "Aide-Memoire" (2,078). Best hits-to-kudos ratio is my tiny-fandom Yuletide story, "The Giant in the Cavern Brings Copper and Silver and Gold" which has staggeringly received 1 kudos for every 2.73 hits.

Most fun story to write: "Between the Motion and the Act" in a completely evil way, or "Work It Harder (Make It Better)".

Story with the single sexiest moment: I guess, uh, it depends on how you feel about tentacles? Uh. "Cuir et Peluche" is probably the safe bet here.

Story with the single sweetest moment: Aw, man, There Is No Shortage of Blood manages to pull off a lot of sweetness embedded in... everything else. "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" is ridiculously nothing but sweet, as is "Venom Versus Christmas". And... wow, I wrote a lot of sweetness this year, LIKE MAYBE I NEEDED IT?? THANKS, 2018.

Story with the single saddest moment: "The Way We Are Tied In"

Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: Uh... I feel like this should probably be a Venom story?? But I can't really... tell...?

My weirdest/kinkiest story as demonstrated by reader response: (I updated last year's spreadsheet for this so now I can compare YEAR ON YEAR, this is GREAT.) "Work It Harder (Make It Better)" won highest percentage of bookmarks kept private on AO3 (38%, less than last year's winner), and also had the largest ratio of kudos to comments (the "I like this but I don't want to talk about it" quotient, with almost 27 kudos per comment).

My most startlingly wholesome story as demonstrated by reader response: "The Giant in the Cavern Brings Copper and Silver and Gold" has ZERO private bookmarks as of this writing, and "A Forward Takeoff," strikingly, has only 6% private bookmarks--last year I didn't have a single story with less than 20% private bookmarks.

Hardest story to write: Oh, God. All of them, in the first three quarters of the year.

Biggest surprise: Monsterfucking!

This year’s theme and the story that demonstrates it most:Monsterfucking! Uhhh... man, I don't even know. Finishing things? I finished writing a bunch of things and got very close to finishing one more, and that's the strongest impression I have, but that's not really an in-story theme.

Favorite opening line:Eric had certainly never expected to be wolf-bonded. from "A Forward Takeoff."

Favorite closing line: From "Between the Motion and the Act": Maybe now we can both get some rest.

What fests/exchanges/etc. did you participate in this year? I wrote "Cuir et Peluche" for my Fandom Loves Puerto Rico auction winner, mara_jade, and I wrote two Yuletide stories--"Venom Versus Christmas" for Okadiah, and "The Giant in the Cavern Brings Copper and Silver and Gold" for donutsweeper.

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Aaaaaaaaa I really love this post, and all your writing. I've read Aide-Memoire probably... 5 or 6 times already? The one the battles always choose like 2 or 3. And the little bitty series too. I just love how you write characters caring for each other, it's so soft and I've just needed that recently. Thank you for all your hard work this year ☆

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This was so interesting to read, plus all this fic on top of three books is seriously impressive. And I'm always fascinated/awed by your spreadsheets/stats keeping around your fics! (Also, yay new brain meds!)